MeinMMO demon Cortyn has played the new horror game in the universe of Dead by Daylight. But does “The Casting of Frank Stone” actually live up to the hype?
Anyone who follows me and my articles a bit knows that a good story is important to me – even in games that are actually able to do without a story. Dead by Daylight is such a game where the story is completely pushed into the background for many players. All the more I was excited when it was announced a few months ago that this would change with its own story spin-off.
“The Casting of Frank Stone” is one such game that is being released on Steam today. It was developed by Supermassive Games, who gained fame with “The Quarry” and “Man of Medan”.
I had the opportunity to play through The Casting of Frank Stone last weekend. I want to avoid major story spoilers here, but at least a brief explanation of some incidents is necessary.
For transparency’s sake, I should mention that the game was provided to me in advance as a review copy. This means on one hand that I did not have to pay for the game, but also that I have not yet experienced a potential first patch.
The story of The Casting of Frank Stone
The plot begins in the past. In a small town, a baby is kidnapped, and the trail leads a brave police officer to an old steel mill. Frank Stone, one of the steelworkers, wanted to sacrifice the child in a ritual and ultimately meets his own end in the process. A horror story that is still told in the small town of Cedar Hills even years later.
Years later, in 1980, the steel mill is abandoned and a group of teenagers visits the site to shoot their own horror film: “Murder Mill”. However, strange incidents accumulate during the filming, and it seems that the mysterious Frank Stone has not completely left the steel mill even years after his death…
In parallel, the plot takes place in the present, in 2024. “Murder Mill” is considered a hidden gem of the horror genre, and there are even rumors surrounding the film. When it is screened, viewers are said to fall into murderous frenzy. There seems to be something in the footage of this amateur film that exerts influence even many decades later and regularly gives some people nightmares. A mystery that is only unveiled piece by piece.
The storyline constantly jumps between these two narratives. In the present, one tries to decipher what happened in the past to play through these events and experience how it truly unfolded.
The gameplay – Functional and typical
As is common for most games from Supermassive Games – or many horror games in general – the gameplay primarily consists of exploring different areas. The eerie steel mill, the architecture of an old villa, or a walk through the woods. There are almost always small puzzles to discover or items to find. Some are solely for collectors (those into achievements), but almost always there are also story objects that provide more background information or even unlock new dialogue options.
The biggest impact on the story is made through decisions. In dialogues, you can take your time:
- Do you show compassion or accusation?
- Do you take the safe route to the steel mill, which is close to the police?
- Do you take the more dangerous path through the woods, which remains unnoticed?
You have significantly less time when action is on the agenda. Here you have to make a decision within a few seconds, which often determines the fate of one or more characters:
- Do you try to save your girlfriend and confront the killer, or do you flee?
- Do you lock a door immediately, or do you wait for stragglers?
Consequences often come immediately, and a single decision can lead to the instant death of a protagonist. The story then continues and adapts. This is combined with few quick-time events in which you must prove the character’s skills – you can also choose to fail intentionally if you wish.
This creates a vast web of possibilities and different scenes that you can experience.
Horror without jumpscares
When thinking of “modern horror,” some roll their eyes in annoyance. Especially in movies and series, but also in video games over the past years, jumpscares are often relied upon – that is, quiet, eerie scenes in which suddenly (and usually very loudly) something appears and startles you. This is rightly perceived by many as “cheap”.
This is why I am even more pleased that The Casting of Frank Stone does not need that at all. There are many creepy, tense moments, and sometimes it even becomes downright panicky – but I experienced virtually no clumsy jumpscares during my first playthrough. The horror approached – slowly and inexorably. That was much creepier than any jumpscare could have been.
It’s classic horror that unfolds its effect slowly and sustainably.
References to Dead by Daylight, without feeling silly
The fact that “The Casting of Frank Stone” is a game in the world of Dead by Daylight is not only made clear by the story surrounding killers, survivors, and the entity. There are repeatedly small allusions – sometimes more subtle, sometimes quite direct.
Thus, The Casting of Frank Stone also occasionally has “skill checks” that use exactly the same sounds as in Dead by Daylight. Often, a generator needs to be repaired, and when the killer is nearby, the heartbeat pulses audibly.
Additionally, there are several collectible items – dolls of well-known killers like the Trapper, Doctor, or Nurse. At first, when I saw the doll, I thought: “Uff, that doesn’t really fit in here and pulls me out of the world” – but I was wrong. The further the story progressed, the more I realized how unbelievably well these elements fit into the story.
A feature every game needs
A small but very impressive detail I want to highlight separately. Story fans are certainly familiar with the problem from many other games: The characters talk while gameplay is happening. You search a room while the characters chat or move on. If you get too far away from the group or trigger something, the dialogue is interrupted, and you miss story. This is incredibly annoying and often makes me roll my eyes at many games.
The Casting of Frank Stone surprised me here. Because when dialogues were prematurely interrupted here – for example, because you briefly loot something or trigger something – the dialogue is not lost. Instead, the character brings it up again at the next opportunity, saying something like: “Where was I just? Oh right …” Then they pick up the previous conversation and continue it.
This is such a simple thing, but I noticed it here for the first time, and it greatly contributed to the already good atmosphere. I would wish for this in absolutely every game with dialogues from now on.
Game time, technical issues, and replay value
How long is the playtime? The playtime will likely vary depending on the decisions made. My first playthrough took about 6 hours, allowing me to complete the game over the course of one (rather long) night. However, I never reloaded
or replayed sections, but accepted the consequences each time, even if a decision was disadvantageous.
In doing so, I neither took particularly long searching nor did I “rush through”. I listened to the dialogues, and only when the story made it clear that time pressure was prevailing, did I become a bit hasty.
These technical issues arose: I would like to criticize a few technical shortcomings. They are not overly significant, but they did stand out to me:
- Although my computer is quite good, the game had stutters several times, mostly at the beginning of a new scene. It often felt like the game had not fully loaded the environment before the scene began. After a few seconds, the stutters disappeared, but it happened in roughly half of all scenes.
- A “V-Sync” function would have been desirable – at least, I couldn’t find it. Especially with fast camera movements, I occasionally experienced annoying visual errors with screen tearing.
- Characters sometimes appear a bit static and occasionally seem “spontaneously placed in a scene” when the camera pans to them. The characters stand still for a fraction of a second and then start running – in a scene where they should have already been in motion for a while. This was very rare, but when it happened, it felt rather unintentionally funny.
But these are just small things, and I assume that especially the technical issues will be fixed promptly with patches.
Will you play this more than once? With a high degree of certainty, even if I let a few weeks pass. If you want, you can display a kind of “net” at the end of the game that shows all scenes and decisions made. It becomes evident that I have only seen a fraction of all scenes and experiences so far, and the course of the story will likely change drastically if I make different decisions.
My goal for the next time: At least one character must survive. Let’s see if I can manage that.
My own story: I’m not as good at horror games as I thought
I don’t consider myself the greatest gamer genius under the sun. But I do have a certain ego and believe that in horror games with decisions, you can hardly go wrong if you follow three simple rules:
- The group does not separate.
- No one plays the hero.
- Stick together and trust each other.
Three very simple rules that are disregarded by almost every horror movie featuring screaming teenagers, who usually meet their screen deaths in creatively gory ways.
I would never let that happen while playing.
That’s what I thought for a long time. But my beautiful house of cards collapsed more and more during the last hour of gameplay. I lost one character due to a wrong decision – I just wanted to play the hero for once. A second character died because I thought: “Nothing is going to happen during a dialogue, so I’ll just grab a few pretzels” – Bam, the skill check came, and the next protagonist was already split in two on the floor.
Especially the last half hour was a series of quiet, horrified “No, oh no …” whimpers in front of the screen. Because completely unnoticed, I had set everything in motion so that one calamity followed the other.
Especially, the game is also ruthlessly good at showing you through various signals why a consequence happened now. Who would have thought that the little mirror I tucked away at the very beginning of the game could play an important role at the end – and that I made the wrong choice again.
The bottom line: Absolutely all characters died. Every single one. No one survived. As a consolation prize, I received the achievement “Merciless Killer” – Merciless Killer.
I thought I would be among the survivors in a horror film scenario. Don’t ask me for tips.
Conclusion: A powerful story that Dead by Daylight has been missing
The Casting of Frank Stone has convinced me. The atmosphere is spot on, the characters are interesting and multifaceted, the horror is classic yet gripping, and the story is unexpectedly complex. It is the first game in the Dead by Daylight universe that story fans should be quite satisfied with, finally feeling that: Yes, this universe is vast and well thought out. It is more than a lobby game; it has extensive lore and is extraordinarily versatile.
The only downside is the price of around €40 on Steam, which is quite high if you only want to play the game once. Because if you only spend 5-6 hours with the game, you have to dig quite deep into your pockets. However, if you want to experience the story multiple times, achieve different outcomes, and see new scenes, you will get your money’s worth. In doubt, you can always wait for the first price reduction.
I played with English voice acting, which I found very good. The entire game is also equipped with German voice acting if you value that.
From my side, I can give a clear recommendation for The Casting of Frank Stone. It finally provides Dead by Daylight with the playable story that the universe has deserved for a long time. I hope that the game will be a success – because I want more of it, and I believe that you will too, once you see how this story ends.
And if this story is too scary for you, you can still invite the killers of Dead by Daylight on a date.
